First Place; Picture Up; Fiction Writers in This Year's Contest Had No Assigned Topic. They Were, However, Required to Use the Words 'Mercury in Retrograde,' 'Tia Sophia's' and 'Chinese Elm' in Their Stories

Summary

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I can groove on it too. Because I work outside. Not like those office mooks in Century City. "Score a studio gig," a buddy of mine told me when I first came out to the Coast. "They pay you way too much. And most of the time, it's just hang time. Everyone's doing lunch or taking a meeting." He got that right. But what did he know? He ended up directing a low-budget feature, walked head first, straight into the tail rotor of the chopper he was using to shoot a stunt. Long day. Magic hour. Had the whole crew chasing a dusk shot. Typical director behavior. Their only reality is their own reality. He bought it good. I don't need that kind of grief. I'm a team player. Don't mind doing my small part, hanging it up at night and seeing what's on the platter for tomorrow. I don't worry about little gold statues or where they seat me at Morton's. Or who returns my phone calls. Don't need the headaches, don't need the hassles. I'm in, I'm out. Onward and upward. Next.

An ear-splitting shriek and I nearly code. It's coming from the squawk box next to the front door. A voice, garbled and staccato, is frantically barking questions in falsetto Spanglish. Like an idiot I'm trying to communicate with it, stabbing any button that works to find the talkback. I'm expecting the maid when the door crunches open revealing a tall slender Asian woman. She says, "Don't bother fiddling with that. It's on the flitz." The "flitz." Don't you just love the way they mangle our idioms?

The morning of the shoot I'm at our sound-stage in Valencia checking cover sets when my assistant, Kirk, rings me up on my mobile. He says, "You been out to your set today?" I say, "That bad?" "Mercury in Retrograde." I take Kanan Dume across the hill. Dooley, the teamster captain, sees me coming up the driveway and waves me right through without a moment's grief. He doesn't make me park in Outer Mongolia and hike in, which is the first tip-off. And he's actually smiling. For once, he's glad to see me. Today, I'm the entertainment.

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First Place; Picture Up; Fiction Writers in This Year's Contest Had No Assigned Topic. They Were, However, Required to Use the Words 'Mercury in Retrograde,' 'Tia Sophia's' and 'Chinese Elm' in Their Stories

I'm on my way to Malibu on the 10 heading west to PCH when I round the curve of the McClure tunnel and boom, that view of the ocean and the sparkling coastline opens up and I say to myself, this is why I live in L.A. It's for days like this.

I can groove on it too. Because I work outside. Not like those office mooks in Century City. "Score a studio gig," a buddy of mine told me when I first came out to the Coast. "They pay you way too much. And most of the time, it's just hang time. Everyone's doing lunch or taking a meeting." He got that right. But what d...

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